Caves Lascaux, France

The macroarchaeometric approach has wide applicability. Climatic studies in the caves of Lascaux, France (8), and Alta Mira, Spain (9), are but two examples. This approach is now particularly useful in studies of the excavated and unexcavated ancient sites of the Nile River Valley because of the recent, accelerated deterioration of many of its monuments. It has already been applied to several ancient Egyptian archaeological sites (10-21). 

The specific activity of an article found in the Lascaux Caves in France is 0.0375 Bq g. Calculate the age of the article. 

Paintings discovered in a limestone cave in Lascaux, France, in 1940 were a popular tourist attraction until authorities sealed the cave to protect the paintings. Prior to the discovery of the artwork from thousands of years ago, the cave was well sealed from the atmosphere. Suggest a reason why opening the cave sped up the deterioration of the paintings. 

A method to determine age on old items is the carbon-14 method that is based on the principles behind decay of the radioactive carbon-14 isotope. Items found in the Lascaux-caves in France have a rate of decay ofnuclei of 2.25 pr. minute pr. gram carbon. 

The items found in the Lascaux-caves in France thereby has an approximate age of 15846 years. 

Charcoal from the Lascaux cave in France (famous for its remarkable paintings) was found to have an activity of 2.22 counts per minute per g of carbon. Estimate the age of the sample. 

Cave painting n. The art produced in the form of paintings on the walls of caves from the beginning of the Old Stone Age to the end of the New Stone Age, around 3000 Bc. The entire period covers a span of some 200,000 years. The Paleolithic cave paints at Altamira (Spain) and those at Lascaux (France) are believed to date between 40,000 and 10,000 bc. 

Prehistoric cave painting of a red horse from Lascaux. The colours used in the painting were obtained from the local deposits of red and yellow ochres, i. e. iron oxides. Similar ochre deposits in Southern France are still mined for pigment production today. As colouring agents, iron oxides have served man more or less continuously for over 30,000 years. A major, modern technological application of these compounds (mainly in synthetic form) is as pigment. 

Perhaps the earliest and most striking example is the cave paintings discovered at Altamira in Spain and Lascaux in France in the nineteenth century. These paintings of bison and horses date from the last ice age, some 12,000-17,000 years ago, and illustrate the strong adhesion of fine pigments to the cave wall (see Fig. 1.9). Presumably, the ancient artists had ground up the... 

A live plant has some radioactivity owing to the presence of that shows 15.3 counts per minute per gram of carbon. In the cave of Lascaux in France some samples of coal... 

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